Howard Kushner, PhDEmeritus

Howard I. Kushner is the Nat C. Robertson Distinguished Professor of Science & Society Emeritus at Emory University where he held joint appointments as Professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education in the Rollins School of Public Health and in Emory’s Programs Human Health and in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and in the Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts. Previously he served as the John R. Adams Distinguished Professor of History at San Diego State University (SDSU). Kushner returned to San Diego, California in 2015 where he is now emeritus professor of history and Adjunct Professor in the Graduate School of Public Health at SDSU, as well as a member of the Emeriti Association at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and a UCSD Chancellor’s Scholar Mentor. 

A historian of medicine and neuroscience, Kushner is author of five books, including the recently published On the Other Hand: Left Hand, Right Brain, Mental Illness, and History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017). His other book include A Cursing Brain? The Histories of Tourette Syndrome (Harvard University Press, 1999), American Suicide: A Psychocultural Exploration (Rutgers University Press, 1991), and numerous articles on medical history in journals including Lancet, the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Perspectives in Biology& Medicine, Journal of the History of Medicine, Journal of Pediatric Infectious Disease, the American Journal of Public Health, Laterality, and Pediatric Cardiology.  Kushner’s research has also included a collaborative study of Kawasaki Disease, with colleagues from the University of California, San Diego, funded by a series of grants including the National Institutes of Health, the National Library of Medicine, and the Kawasaki Disease Foundation. Kushner also has published a series of articles on addiction and its relationship to self-medication. Supported by a grant from the Engelhard Foundation, Kushner was a co-convener of the “Conference on Addiction, the Brain, and Culture” held at Emory in February 2009, and co-editor of a special issue of BioSocieties, 5 (March 2010) entitled “Drugs, Addiction and Society.” Kushner’s current research focuses on the possible connections between handedness, laterality, and learning disorders. His articles on this topic recently appeared on in The Lancet (2011 ,2012), Laterality (2012, 2013, 2014), and Endeavour (2013).  His I-Book, Talent and Deficit: The Anomalies of Left-Handedness. Produced by Academic Exchange, Emory University, 2012, is available on line: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmdAYqqc8gc.

• Kushner, H. I., 2017, On the Other Hand, Left Hand, Right Brain, Mental illness, & History, John's Hopkins University Press, ,
• Henry C. Powell and Howard I. Kushner , 2015, Mozart at Play: The Limitations of Attributing the Etiology of Genius to Madness, in Eckart Altenmüller, François Boller and Stanley Finger, eds. Music, Neurology, and Neuroscience: History and Modern Perspectives in Progress in Brain Research forthcoming. , in Eckart Altenmüller, François Boller and Stanley Finger, eds. Music, Neurology, and Neuroscience: History and Modern Perspectives in Progress in Brain Research forthcoming. , ,
• Clyde Partin, Howard I. Kushner, Mary E. Kollmer Horton , 2014, A tale of Congress, continuing medical education, and the history of medicine , Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, 27, 156-160
• Howard I. Kushner, 2014, Norman Geschwind and the use of History in the (Re)Birth of Behavioral Neurology” , J Hist Neurosci, Epub ahead of print] PMID: 2521088 ,
• Kushner, HI, 2013, Deficit or Creativity: Cesare Lombroso, Robert Hertz, and the Meanings of Left-Handedness, I-first early release EPUB,4 July 2012., Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, , 18, 416-436
• Kushner, HI, 2013, Why There are (almost) No Left-Handers in China, Endeavour, 37, 71-81
• Jessica Preslar, Howard I. Kushner, Lori Marino & Bradley Pearce., 2013, Autism, lateralization, and handedness: a review of the literature and meta-analysis” , Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition,, in press,
• Howard I. Kushner & Leslie S. Leighton, , 2013, The Histories of Medicine: Toward An Applied History of Medicine,, Humanities in the Twenty-first Century: Beyond Utility and Markets, edited by Eleonora Belfiore & Anna Upchurch, London: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2013, 111-136., , 111-136
• Kushner, HI , 2012, Retraining Left-Handers and the Aetiology of Stuttering: The Rise and Fall of an Intriguing Theory , Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, 17, 673-693
• Kushner, HI, 2012, The Cursing Patient: Neuropsychiatry Confronts Tourette Syndrome, 1825-2010. In Stephen Jacnya and Stephen Casper, (eds.), The Neurological Patient in History. Rochester: Univ. of Rochester Press, 2012, 129-164., , , 129-164
• Kushner, H. I. , 2011, Cesare Lombroso and the Pathology of Left-Handedness, , The Lancet, 377, 118-119
• Kushner, HI, 2011, Retraining the King’s Left Hand, Lancet , 377, 1998-1999
• Braswell, H., & Kushner, H. I. , 2011, Suicide, Social Integration, and Masculinity in the U.S. Military, Social Science & Medicine, in press,
• Kushner, HI & Abramowsky, C., 2010, An Old Autopsy Report Sheds Light on a “New” Disease: IPN and KD, Pediatric Cardiology, 31, Online prepublication 7 January 2010.
• Kushner, HI, 2010, Evidence-Based Medicine and the Patient/Physician Dyad, The Permanente Journal, 2010 , 14, 71-75
• Kushner, HI, 2010, Toward a Cultural Biology of Addiction, BioSocieties, 5, 8-24
• Kushner, HI, MacNee, R, Burns, JC, 2009, Kawasaki Syndrome in India: Increasing Awareness or Increased Incidence, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 52, 17-29
• Kushner, HI, 2008, History as a Medical Tool, Lancet, 371, 552-553
• Kushner, HI, 2008, Medical Historian and the History of Medicine , Lancet, 371, 710-711
• Kushner, HI, Bastian, JF, Turner, CL, Burns, JC, 2008, The Two Emergences of Kawasaki Disease & Its Implication for the Developing World, Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, 27, in press
• Kushner, H.I., 2007, "The Other War on Drugs: The Pharmaceutical Industry, Evidence-Based Medicine, and Clinical Practice", Journal of Policy History, 19:1, 49-70
• Kushner, H.I., Macnee, R., and Burns, J.C., 2006, "Impression of Kawasaki Disease in India", Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 73, 939-941
• Bastian, J.F. and Kushner, H.I., 2006, "New tool for diagnosing Kawasaki disease", Rheumatology, 45:2, 240-241
• Kushner, H.I., 2006, "Taking Biology Seriously: The Next Task fir Historians of Addiction?", Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 80, 115-143
• Kushner, H.I., 2005, "Cutting-Edge Psychiatry", Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science, 7, 71-80
• Kushner, H.I. and Sterk, C.E., 2005, "The Limits of Social Capital: Durkheim, Suicide, and Social Cohesion", Amer. Journal of Public Health, 95, 1139-1143
• Kushner, H.I., 2004, "Competing Medical Cultures, Support Groups, and Tourette Syndrome", Emerging Illness and Society: Negotiating the Public Health Agenda, edited by Randall M. Packard, Peter J. Brown, Ruth L. Berkelman, & Howard Frumkin. Johns Hopkins University Press, , 71-101
• Talley, C., Kushner, H.I., and Sterk, C.E., 2004, "Lung Cancer, Chronic Disease Epidemiology, and Medicine, 1948-1964", Journal of the History of Medicine, 59, 329-373
• Kushner, H.I., Burns, J.C., Bastian, J.F., and Turner, C.H., 2004, "The Histories of Kawasaki Disease", Progress in Pediatric Cardiology, 19, 91-97
• Kushner, H.I., Turner, C.H., Bastian, J.F., and Burns, J.C., 2004, "The Narratives of Kawasaki Disease", Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 78, 410-439
• Kushner, H.I., Bastian, J.F., Turner, C.H., and Burns, J.C., 2003, Rethinking the Boundaries of Kawasaki Disease: Toward the Next Case Definition, Perspectives in Biology & Medicine, 46, 216-233
• Brown, K.E., and Kushner, H.I., 2001, "Eruptive Voices: Coprolalia, Malediction, and the Poetics of Cursing", New Literary History, 32, 537-562
• Burns, J.C, Kushner, H.I., Bastian, J.F., Shike, H., Shimizu, C., Matsubara, T., and Turner, C.L., 2000, "Kawasaki disease: A brief history", Pediatrics, 106(2), 27-41
• Kushner, H.I., 1999, "From Gilles de la Tourette's Disease to Tourette Syndrome", CNS Spectrums, 4, 24-35
• Kushner, H.I., 1999, A Cursing Brain?: The Histories of Tourette Syndrome, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and London, ,
• Kushner , H.I. and Kiessling, L.S., 1996, "The Controversy over the Classification of Gilles de la Tourette's Syndrome, 1800-1995", Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 39, 409-435
• Kushner, H.I., 1991, American Suicide: A Psychocultural Exploration (Chinese translation of Kushner, American Suicide: A Psychocultural Exploration, translated by Margaret Meng, San Min Book Co, Ltd., Taipei, Taiwan, 1997.) , Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick and London, ,